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School age children are being arrested for minor incidents at
South Dakota School, Parents and Tribe file Complaint
By Ruth Steinberger
Numerous families with children in the Winner School System in Tripp County, South Dakota are angry at the way that minor infractions by Indian youth are handled by school officials. Many families have experienced their children, accused of minor infractions such as shoving and minor fights, to be removed from the school by local police, arrested and taken to the police station without notification of the parents. Parents believe that racially motivated discipline by a system that has little regard for the civil rights of youth has created an unusual set of procedures that damages their children’s educational career.
According to parents, the school system does not notify the family that the child is being, or has been, removed from the school. Parents are not called until after the children are booked, including finger printing and having mug shots taken, and are told they must write “their side of the story” before they are allowed to call home. The children are not told they have a right to remain silent and are not offered contact with an attorney. The statements they write out will then be used to implicate them and other children in legal action, either at that time or later on. Effectively, charges against the children are “stockpiled” for possible later use when the child has committed an infraction too minor to be charged with, at which time an earlier incident is pulled out and charges are then filed.
Problems with that school system have caused an alarming number of families to move children to the Todd County School System and to consider other alternatives to keeping their children in the Winner School system.
Rose Chasing Hawk told of an ordeal that started over a year ago when her son and a relative got into a minor altercation at school. The incident took place in a lunch line, no weapon was involved and no one was injured. Immediately after the incident both children were taken to the police station where after being booked, both were told that they would have to write out their side of the story. By the time Chasing Hawk was called to come pick up her son he had inadvertently implicated himself and the other child. His “statement” would later arrive stapled to court papers. Chasing Hawk explained that children don’t realize that when they write, “He did this-so I did that”, and it becomes a statement admitting to an action (a confession) as well as an accusation against another child. According to Chasing Hawk when she arrived at the police station, the boy was brought out to the car with a letter from the school, preventing her from going into the police station to hear from an adult what had actually happened. After the incident, Chasing Hawk asked her son if they read him his rights and the boy responded by asking, “What’s that?”
At no time surrounding the ordeal did any adult from the school or police department who called to tell her to pick the boy up, speak with Chasing Hawk about the event or about the arrest of her child.
According to several families, at times no further action is taken at the time of the child’s removal to the police station, but the “statement” will be retained by the court and often pulled out at a later time if the child has said or done something to offend someone at the school. Additionally, problems at school and in the community may be “overlapped”. Chasing Hawk explained that her daughter was charged following a very minor incident in school several months after a minor incident at the local swimming pool. Though the situation at the pool was handled between the two parents with no court involvement, when the incident occurred at school several months later, the child was told she would be charged with both incidents. Chasing Hawk said she was offered the deal that if she plead guilty to simple assault from the incident in school, the incident at the pool would not be pursued.
Chasing Hawk said, “They build a legal case against our children so that by the time they are young teenagers they look like hardened criminals.” In the case of Chasing Hawk’s son, no immediate legal action followed the original incident. However, when the other boy was later overheard making a comment that upset a teacher, the boy was immediately detained for assault and the charges were based entirely on the earlier incident. Chasing Hawk explained that this style of handling problems for Indian children is nothing new.
Robert Black Feather also had a child removed from the Tripp County Middle School and taken to the police station. His daughter was told she had to write a statement and sign a form declaring herself a juvenile delinquent, before she was permitted to call home. Black Feather explained, “We have six kids and all have been subjected to various forms of racism there. For instance, kids are overheard badmouthing Indian kids with comments like, ‘my parents have to work to put you through school’. They’re getting this stuff from the parents, when actually the situation is just the opposite. The school gets impact aid money and JOM, yet our kids are subjected to that kind of thing. The administration seems to look the other way when things are done to our children. When we go over there to defend our children, they defend their faculty.” Black Feather also explained that when his daughter was taken into custody no effort was made to contact he and his wife by the school. They were not contacted by police until after she had been arrested and made to sign a paper declaring that she is a juvenile delinquent. Black Feather said, “There is no due process at all.”
The Black Feathers took their children out of the school and put them in school at Todd County where Black Feather said they enjoy their own culture. However, because of the distance, the children have to sleep there overnight and come home on the weekends. But according to Black Feather, in order for their children to get an education, once again Indian families are being broken up.
Dana Hanna is the public defender for the Rosebud Tribe and has been authorized by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to take action to address these issues. Hanna said, “There’s supposed to be a wall between criminal prosecution and education and in Winner it’s difficult to see that wall. A little school girl shoving match between two twelve year olds should not be the beginning of criminal prosecution.” Hanna explained that Indian youth in Winner are routinely taken from the school into police custody with no due process. State code in South Dakota states that when a youth is taken into custody without a court order an immediate attempt must be made to contact the parents.
Vonna Lopez’, described an incident that happened last year that resulted in her removing her son from the Winner School District and placing him in an Indian run school in the Todd County School system for the duration of the year. Lopez’ son was removed from school, arrested and booked without being allowed to call home following an incident which began when he was targeted with racist comments. Lopez said, “I’m not saying there were no problems but the reaction was way out of bounds. The process used by the school singles Indian kids out.” Lopez had the same experience of the school making no attempt to reach Lopez when the child was taken off school premises and into police custody. Her son had been finger printed, and his photograph was taken by police. He explained that a girl had made comments about him being a dirty Indian. As Lopez’ son made comments back, the incident escalated and the principal overheard the incident. Her son was taken to the principal’s office. No other child in the incident was disciplined, including the girl who used racial slurs and taunts at Lopez son. “The principal said ‘we only give three strikes and you’re out’, this is more like the courts than a school, “ said Lopez. “He was definitely singled out and he suffered a lot.”
Because of the way a minor problem was processed through the courts instead of being handled through school, her son was on probation at age 11.
Winner School Superintendent, Mary Fisher stated that they follow the guidelines set forth by the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education and information from that office stated they were in compliance on their procedures. Fisher was referencing a 1998 visit investigating Winner School District. Fisher stated that the success rate of Indian children in the Winner School system is comparable to all other systems and denied that there is an excessive drop out rate for Indian youth in the Winner system. Regarding the practice of having Indian children removed from the schools by the police, Fisher said, “We work with local law enforcement agencies and follow their policies to the letter.” She also said that the system follows the guidelines of the Office of Civil Rights, “to the letter”.
Though Fisher claimed that all procedures used are in full accordance with the disciplinary matrix proposed by the Office of Civil Rights ( OCR), information supplied by the OCR of the Department of Education reveals that this information is erroneous. Letters sent to the Winner School District do not reference the specific procedures used by the school system and can not be construed to be a “blanket approval” of the actions of the Winner School District.
During the week of April 27, 1998 the OCR of the Department of Education conducted a partnership review with the Winner School District. This review focused on ensuring that disciplinary policies are drafted in a nondiscriminatory manner and that procedures are in place to prevent and remedy racial harassment. An eight page letter dated February 9, 2000, sent to the Winner School District by the Department of Education was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Native Times. The letter to Winner School District calls for the formulation and implementation of policies before July 1, 2000 and outlines the monitoring of the system.
The April 27, 1998 letter called for the formulation of written policy for handling racial harassment against Indian youth by other students, with a date for implementation of July 1, 2000. A complaint that such violence is tolerated by the administration of that system was voiced repeatedly during a survey of Indian families that was conducted by the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Education Department in conjunction with other tribal offices including legal offices.
A letter dated April 17, 2001, from the OCR of the Department of Education to the Winner School District reveals that policies intended to handle racial harassment, and specifically policies to stop racial harassment of students by other students, had still not been implemented. Verbal as well as physical racial harassment of their children by other youth within the school was consistently cited by parents. The April 17, 2001 letter references that such a policy was to have been implemented by July 1, 2000 and this was outlined in an agreement signed by then Winner School District Superintendent, David Nicholas on February 1, 2000.
Rodger Murphey, of the Public Relations Office of the Department of Education, said that no policy supported by the Department of Education encourages any system to have children arrested and denied access to their rights including the Miranda Act, nor does the department support any other action contrary to civil rights of children.
Fisher denied that Indian youth in the Winner system have an excessive drop out rate. However, data supplied by the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Education Department indicates that the drop out rate for Indian youth in the Winner School system is 10 times higher than for youth in the neighboring school systems on the Rosebud reservation.
Additionally, the percentage of youth enrolled in the Winner School District, grade by grade, reveals an alarming pattern. In grades one through nine approximately 25% to 27% of the children are Indian youth. In grade ten that number will consistently drop to around 13%, in grade 11 that number drops again to 11% and only 2% of the senior class will be Indian youth. There has been no recent and rapid change in the Indian population to account for this phenomenon. Sherry Red Owl, Director of Tribal Education Department in Rosebud, cites the number of Indian youth enrolled in grades 9 through 12 in the 98-99 school year as an example. That year, 51 students were enrolled in those grades in the beginning of the year. By the end of the year that number had dwindled to 11. Red Owl explained, “Statistically, this tells us they have a really bad track record of dealing with Indian youth. When you have 25% to start with and that number drops to 2% by the time they are in the 12th grade, there’s a problem.” Importantly, the reasons cited by the Winner system for the youth being removed from the school never references problems with the school system itself. Reasons include: transferred, exceeded allowable absences, medical, academic and family. However, of those who transferred, almost all went into the Todd County School System because of problems with the Winner School System. This volume of loss from a school system along racial lines is referred to by those in the federal government who track such phenomenon as “push-outs”, or youth that are pushed out of a system that makes it difficult or uncomfortable for them to stay. The term “push-outs” has traditionally referred to African American youth in the deep south where similar problems are seen.
In November, 2001, Dana Hanna filed a complaint on behalf of an Indian family with the US Department of Education. The suit alleges that in this case, as a matter of policy and practice, the school routinely violated the FERPA (Family Education Rights to Privacy Act), a federal law that guarantees the right of confidentiality of educational records during court proceedings. Hanna explained that these records are to be released only with the consent of a parent or by the action of a court order, yet Winner School District officials routinely disclose disciplinary records from the students file in court proceedings without parental consent or a subpoena.
Jennifer Ring, Director of ACLU of the Dakotas, said that, “Children have the right to being read Miranda rights. Police may not just question children and tell them they must implicate themselves in order to speak with their family. It is that simple.”
Winner Police Chief, Paul Sheuts did not return calls for comments on procedures in Winner.
Ruth Steinberger is an investigative reporter on justice issues for Native American Times. She can be reached at rhsteinberger1@yahoo.com
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